Do I Make Her Proud?
by Strange-How-Hard-It-Rains-Now
Summary: Booth just wants to make Bones proud. Is a oneshotsongfic to Taylor Hicks Do I Make You Proud. Give it a change and read and REVIEW, please!


Disclaimer: I don't own Bones, wish I did. I don't own the song "Do I make you Proud". Credits go to Fox, Kathy Reichs, Taylor Hicks. Please don't sue me!! Credit goes to whoever had anything to do with Bones or "Do I Make You Proud". Also, I'm not sure if I read the chain analogy elsewhere, so if its yours, let me know and I'll credit you.

Note: I'm not sure where Booth grew up, but I think its Philadelphia. Correct me if I'm wrong, and I'll fix it!! Please review, guys. This is my first Bones fic, and I need to know if I should write more. It's a songfic, each verse will have their own chapter.

_I've never been__  
__The one to raise my hand__  
__That was not me__  
__And now that's who I am__  
__Because of you__  
__I am standing tall__  
__My heart is full__  
__Of endless gratitude__  
__You were the one__  
__The one to guide me through__  
__Now I can see__  
__And I believe__  
__It's only just beginning_

Words flowed from my partner's mouth quickly, and evenly. I didn't understand them, only caught the odd known word here or there, but was unable to connect the word to any sort of concise comprehension of what my partner was telling me. Her language, her complex vocabulary of scientific and medical words and phrases, reminded me of a thin metal chain I had once bought Tessa. It was beautiful, but as I tried to wrap it for her it tangled in my fingers. The more I tried to unravel it, the more I knots I put in it. I eventually untangled it though, and it was still beautiful. So it was with Bones' language. I was learning, bit-by-bit, day-by-day.

In lower class Philadelphia, book smarts were not what I focused on. School was never my forte, and I did not excel in studies. Learning wasn't important where I lived. I knew what I had to know. The way the eyes crinkled a certain way if a lie was told, how a person might act when you pushed certain buttons. I learned every action I took would have a reaction in another, and vice versa. This skill grew stronger as a sniper, where your senses had to be acute, and if you read someone wrong, it meant your life. My people skills helped in law enforcement when I joined the bureau. My life had never been affected by my lack of enthusiasm for education, until now.

I worry Bones thinks I am stupid. In the beginning, when we first worked together, I knew we did. I expressed my insecurities through my condescending nicknames…squints…Bones. I haven't used squints in quite a long time. I now see their value. They have names, and positions. I use those. Bones has stuck, though. It's almost a term of affection for Doctor Temperance Brennan, in my eyes.

I suppose the self-conscious feelings could go both ways, and Bones could feel stupid that she does not understand people as well as I do, but I know it doesn't. She defines this difference as exactly that, a meaningless difference. She is learning though, accepting psychology more and more, though still writing it off as a soft science. I am learning as well, and I yearn for her to realize it, to recognize what she has taught me. She's changed me. I realize there are more than just people when it comes to what a person needs to know. Facts, and science have their place. Their very important place.

This what we dream about

but the only question with me now

Is do I make you proud

Stronger than I've ever been NOW

Never been afraid of standing out

But do I make you proud

Pride is so stupid, so idiotic. You have your own pride, that can be so easily injured, and you want others to be proud of you. It almost seems contradictory. The former makes pride seem deeply personal, like a soul, or a personality, and the second seems so external, your actions being judged by another. The words wrap around my brain like Bones' long-winded speeches, strangling it until I have to just give up, and accept that maybe I could not fully understand the words. Proud, pride. In essence, they are the same, just used in different situations, in real life, they need two entirely different definitions.

I have pride in myself, in my actions. Is pride akin to self-confidence? Possibly. I have confidence, self-esteem, especially when I know I have done a job well. This pride, this personal feeling of my own worth, makes me feel cocky, as if I could take the world. It takes a lot, I think, to damage my pride. Bones can do it though, all it takes is a simple phrase that I have to say when she speaks science. I have to say it now, as she stares at me, waiting expectantly for an answer to what she has said.

"Bones, again, in English, thanks."

My voice is cocky, and arrogant, could even be called carefree. It doesn't show that I feel a stab in my gut when I have to bring myself down to the level of an ordinary civilian, not the special agent in the Federal Bureau of Investigation that I know inside I am. As good as I am at my job, having to admit I don't understand, that she has to start again, wounds my pride. In this case, it is a wound that is ripped open again. I have had to say that many, many times.

I can see the patience as Bones begins again, but her eyes also twitch, as if she is frustrated with my ignorance. Its so easy for her to learn facts, and statistics, that she cannot even comprehend that after so many cases I cannot understand her. I feel the stab in my pride again. I want her to realize I do try, its just hard. So hard.

As she travels with me, does cases with me, she often makes me so proud, that I can feel it burning in my chest, while I try to only express it in a smile, maybe a joking phrase. With the Cooke boys, when she used her past as a foster child to get the name of the killer, and in Las Vegas, when she put on the act as Roxy when she needed to. I have taught her. She makes me so proud, and I yearn to make her proud of me. I listen as she speaks, now, making sure she doesn't need to repeat yet again what is so blindingly obvious to her.

"The victim is a woman, approximate 20-25 years of age. Hodgins is working on how long ago she died, but I'm guessing 4-6 months by the stage of decomposition. Cause of death is…"

My chance. I hear had a chance to prove myself. Pointing at the skeleton lying on the table in the forensics lab, I gestured just under the skull, in the area where the neck would have been. Here, I could make Bones proud of me, shown her I had learned something from her.

"Strangulation. The hyoid is cracked."

I spoke clearly, hesitantly, while gesturing at the bone I believed was the hyoid. Bones was silent, for a full five seconds, and I felt a flush rising up my neck and spreading to my cheeks. I had screwed up, that wasn't right at all. Then Bones smiled, not mocking, but in the way she smiled at Zack, her graduate student, when she asked him a question, and he answered exactly the way she wanted.

"I concur."

Bones looked him straight in the eyes and smiled. It was the smile of a teacher to a student, but it was only that simple. There were no exaggerated praises, no surprise that he had known that. Bones wasn't like that, and it would have only made Booth feel wounded again, knowing that it wasn't expected of him. He had made her proud. He could tell in her eyes, her smile. The way she simply said she agreed. Booth read her like a book, and smiled himself. His partner, his friend, his teacher, was finally proud of him. He had made her proud, and proven himself.

Soon, Bones started to talk again, exacting exactly what sort of strangulation she believed had taken the girls life, but her eyes held fresh respect for me, and a glimmer of pride shown. I nodded, as she finished talking, and my cell phone rang in my pocket. I picked it up, stepping off to the side to take the call. When I was finished I put my hand in the small of her back, and guided her out of the Jeffersonian.

"We have another body, Bones, lets get going"

Pride, self-confidence, was flashy, but when someone else was proud of you, it wasn't. It was in a simple gesture, a smile, and extra confidence and privileges in you from the person the next time around. If Bones wasn't going to mention it, neither would I.

Do I make you proud, Do I make you proud


End file.
